Whatever the steps that were taken to bring it about, on July 19—a little over a year after his arrest—Yucé is brought before Villada and Lopes,[191] at his own request, for the purpose of making certain additions to what he has already deponed.
He begins by begging their Paternities to forgive him for not having earlier confessed all that he knew, protesting that such is now his intention, provided that they will pass him their word assuring him of pardon and immunity for himself and his father for all errors committed.[192]
It certainly seems that without previous assurance that some such consideration was intended towards him, he would never have ventured to prefer a request of this nature, at once incriminating—since it admitted his possession of knowledge hitherto withheld—and impudent in its assumption that such information would be purchased at the price he named.
The inquisitors benignly answered him that they agreed to do so upon the understanding that in all he should tell them the entire truth, and they warned him that they would soon be able more or less to perceive whether he was telling the truth.[193]
(This pretence of being already fully informed is the ruse counselled by Eymeric to persuade the person under examination of the futility of resorting to subterfuge.)
Reassured by this answer, and deluded no doubt by the apparent promise of pardon conditional upon a full confession, Yucé begins by offering, as an apology for his past silence upon the matters he is about to relate, the statement that this has been due to an oath which he swore not to divulge anything until he should have been in prison for a year.
Thereupon he is sworn in the Jewish manner to speak the entire truth without fraud or evasions or concealment of anything known by him to concern the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and he addresses himself to the task of amplifying and rectifying what he has previously said.
His confession is that once some three years ago he had been in a cave situated a little way back from the road that runs from La Guardia to Dosbarrios, on the right-hand side as you go towards the latter place, and midway between the two villages. There were present, in addition to himself, his father, Ça Franco, his brother Mosé, since deceased, the physician Yucé Tazarte and one David Perejon—both deceased—Benito Garcia, Juan de Ocaña, and the four Francos of La Guardia—Juan, Alonso, Lope, and Garcia.
Alonso Franco had shown him a heart, which he said had been cut out of a Christian boy, and from its condition Yucé judged that this had been lately done. Further, Alonso had shown him a wafer, which he said was consecrated. This wafer and the heart Alonso enclosed together in a wooden box which he delivered to Tazarte, and the latter took these things apart, saying that he went to perform an enchantment so that the inquisitors could not hurt any of them, or, if they attempted to do so, they must themselves go mad and die within a year.
At this point the inquisitors interpolate two questions: